Chinese and Central Asians Combining to ‘Displace’ Ethnic Russians in Far Eastern City

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 10 – Some Russians fear the arrival of migrant workers from Central Asia; others the arrival of Chinese; but in the Far Eastern city of Ussuriysk, the second largest urban center in Primorsky Kray, these two groups are growing together at a rate that threatens the position of the Slavic majority, Sergey Slon says.
    The Versiya journalist says that officials have downplayed this joint action by focusing on one or the other groups and noting how the migrants have allowed the city to continue to grow despite the exodus of Russians. But, he continues, “positive statistics do not always testify to changes for the better” (versia.ru/v-ussurijske-kitajcy-i-uzbeki-vytesnyayut-korennyx-zhitelej).
    Ussuriysk has some 180,000 residents now, but they are not the same people who were there even a decade ago. In 2020, there were 6400 Uzbeks, 7800 Koreans and 1600 Chinese; but by 2023, 17,000 additional Chinese and 5,000 additional Uzbeks had arrived. That allowed the city’s population to grow but at the price of de-Russianization.
    Most discussions of the change in ethnic mix in the Russian Federation focus on the entire country or on major regions as wholes such as Siberia and the Far East; but ordinary people undoubtedly experience it more at the city or even district level, making rare articles like Slon’s an important sign of the times about ethnic change there.
    But his article is also important for another reason: It highlights something Moscow has been loath to admit. It has only been the arrival of immigrants from China or Central Asia that have kept the population decline in Russia east of the Urals as limited as the central authorities choose to present it. Without the influx of migrants, it would be far worse.